Messi’s record-breaking 72 goals

No player in any single season, in any country or any era, has scored more goals than the 72 that Lionel Messi has accounted for in the 2011-2012 campaign. With a four-goal performance over the weekend, Messi added to his European record, which he had already taken from German legend Gerd Mueller. Barcelona still has two matches to play, so Messi could add to his total before his record-setting season comes to a close, but here's a look at all of the goals he has amassed this season — so far. Enjoy:

It’s fascinating to see a few things from this: 1, how tremendously team-oriented Barca is; Quite a few of his goals were finishes off of some extremely good passing. 2, there is some poor defending in La Liga, coupled with his tremendous skill, and 3, how few of these goals were hit with power. (Hell, a huge amount of them were side-footed-passed into the net.) It just goes to show placement over power can do wonders to a strike.

Why do you have to try to diminish Messi’s greatness by suggesting that La Liga teams have poor defending? Did ManUtd make Bilbao’s defense look bad or was it the other way round? Messi is the leading scorer in the Champions league and is tied for the fist place in assists. And didn’t he set the Champions League single game scoring record by scoring 5 goals against a Bundesliga team?

I’ll defend Boris here. I watched the 72 goals. They are amazing, and there is no doubt that Messi is from another planet. It’s pure joy to watch him. He does benefit from tremendous service, but still, no one else could get 72 goals even with that service. However, the defense is horrible. Out of the 72 goals, I counted a total of 4 attempts by defenders to slide tackle Messi. Basically, if they couldn’t poach the ball while standing face to face with him, they made no further attempts, other than chasing him. That’s crazy. I mean, you’d score a lot of goals too if the rule was that no one would attempt to tackle you once you were inside the box. And it’s not simply that Messi is “that good” that the defenders couldn’t tackle him — they didn’t even try.

I agree, Xavi/Iniesta are amazing at creating the chances, but someone still needs to finish those chances. Leo does so with aplomb and regularity, which is something you can’t say about the other Barca forwards/attacking players, despite receiving the same service. So really, Leo is the one making Xavi/Iniesta look good.

I’m not saying Messi isn’t a great player, and I’m sure his and his teams ability has something to do with it, but a fair number of these goals are due to really frightening defending. I mean, embarrassing.

Count how many were due to the GK fumbling it right to him? How many were due to defenders standing around ball watching? How many were due to half-assed challenges where the defender essentially watches him go by?

And as other intimated, half of his goals were due to his teammates gifting him tap-ins from the six after brilliant one touch passing build-up play.

I totally didn’t expect it, but I’m less impressed with this record after watching the video than before.

My feeling is that the man scored 72 (SEVENTY TWO!!!) goals in an indisputably top league in the world.
The reason he was able to do that, and what makes him so great is that he isn’t able to just knock in balls from the six.
Its because he has the nuance and ability to put him in places where the only choices defenders have are half-assed challenges. By the time the realize what Messi is about to do, they end up looking like fools or incompetents.
Its not so much embarrassing defending, its more about Messi having the gift to be one or two or three moves ahead than the people trying to defend him.

I think you guys are mistaking Messi’s good positioning, great passing, and let’s not forget Messi’s speed, for bad defense. I think it’s less that they made poor decisions or just stood there, and more that they didn’t have time to figure out just what the h311 was happening to them.

haters gotta hate….there should be 20 players in la liga scoring 72 goals if the defense in that league is as bad as these people are suggesting….I guess if your name isnt Clint Dempsey you get no lovefest on this website because every goal he scores is brilliant!!